With the Pittsburgh Steelers getting quarterback Kenny Pickett under contract, all 32 first-round draft picks have now signed with their drafting teams, a process completed well in advance of the start of training camps around the league next month. There may be a reason it went so smoothly, all in all.
That’s because every single first-round draft pick received a fully-guaranteed contract this year, Jeremy Fowler notes, which is not a stipulation of the rookie wage scale outlined within the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Since its implementation in the 2011 CBA, at least, this is the first time that all first-round picks have received fully-guaranteed contracts, to the best of my knowledge.